14 Jan 2009

Virtualisation tipped as disaster recovery technology

Businesses could soon be using virtualisation to reduce the cost of disaster recovery, it has been suggested.

Industry expert Tim Dunger has argued that the technology has the capability of producing a virtual machine, which can provide a replica copy of a business' serveRs.

Therefore it has the potential to provide an instant disaster recovery solution, because firms could access their recovery systems over a secured virtual private network or internet connection, he explained.

This process could allow working systems to be recovered in minutes, Mr Dunger suggested, as well as saving costs by reducing the need for as many physical machines.

In recent years, technological advancements have broadened the market for disaster recovery applications.

Mr Dunger commented: "Companies of all types can now get a much higher standard of service, at a drastically lower price."

Server virtualisation was also tipped for growth in the IT industry by respondents to the National Computing Centre's Benchmark of IT Strategy 2008 survey.

More than 70 per cent of firms were found to view virtualisation as a key technology of major significance.